The battle for San Diego

An off-season mayor’s race in America’s eighth-largest city has become an unexpected magnet for national political groups, as labor unions and Democrats scramble to keep San Diego government in liberal hands and Republicans seek to capture their first big-city mayoral election win in half a decade.

The Tuesday special election in San Diego, triggered by the resignation of Democratic Mayor Bob Filner, caps a tumultuous stretch in the seaside defense-contracting-and-tourism hub that was once a stronghold of California Republicanism. Rocked in the past few years by a public-pensions meltdown that drove one mayor from office and again last year by Filner’s lurid sexual harassment scandal, San Diego politics is now buffeted by a different kind of force: overwhelming outside spending.

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At a moment in politics when Democrats are usually the ones complaining about heavy-handed electioneering from powerfully funded groups on the right, the race in San Diego is a vivid counterpoint — an illustration of the shock-and-awe impact national liberal groups can have when they engage outside federal elections.

By the end of January, Washington-based labor unions had donated more than $1.2 million to outside groups supporting Democrat David Alvarez, a 33-year-old freshman city councilman who would be San Diego’s first Hispanic mayor. The $1.2 million figure matches the entire independent expenditure budget for GOP outside groups in the race, according to the San Diego campaign finance tracker inewsource. National Democrats have engaged in other ways, too: Both San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, the 2012 Democratic convention keynoter, and Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz have stumped for Alvarez.

A race that looked at first like it might be dominated by the ugliness of Filner’s fall has instead become a contrast of big-picture themes, between a youthful Democrat stumping on inequality and inclusion and a more seasoned Republican emphasizing moderation and competence with the government ledger. The mayor’s post would be a national prize for either political party: Alvarez would join a vanguard of unabashedly liberal Democratic mayors elected over the past year, while Kevin Faulconer would be the only Republican mayor of a top-10 U.S. city.

Faulconer, a second-term council member, was initially viewed as a solid favorite. He’s a self-described moderate and environmentalist with an even-keeled personality that seemed like a good fit for San Diego after the tumult of Filner’s brief administration. He has made a point of distancing himself from the national Republican Party; asked if he could imagine himself delivering the national GOP radio address as the party’s most prominent mayor, Faulconer laughed: “Unlikely.”

But polls now show the race is sharply divided, with strategists on both sides saying it’s too close to call. Faulconer says union firepower has made the difference.

“It’s astounding, the amount of money that’s being poured into this race from government unions,” said Faulconer, 47, who has benefited from the support of upscale individual donors and pro-business groups like San Diego’s Lincoln Club. “‘Many of these employee unions were the ones that brought the city to the verge of bankruptcy 10 years ago, when we were ‘Enron by the sea.’”

At least on the surface level, Faulconer’s message should have obvious resonance in a city of San Diego’s experience. Driven to the brink of bankruptcy last decade by unfunded pension commitments, the city dragged itself back to solvency under the direction of popular former GOP Mayor Jerry Sanders. Faulconer served on the council under Sanders and cites him as a model of sensible leadership.

Alvarez, of course, isn’t pledging to take the city back to the bad old days. His pitch has echoed recently elected Democratic mayors in cities such as New York and Boston, emphasizing economic inequality, pledging to raise the minimum wage and rolling out progressive wish-list ideas like a plan to reduce San Diego’s carbon emissions.

The fact that such a bluntly liberal message stands a chance of winning in San Diego underscores how much the city has changed since former California Gov. Pete Wilson served as mayor for a dozen years early in his career. A third of San Diego County’s residents are now Hispanic, according to the U.S. Census; county voters who supported George W. Bush with a 52 percent majority in 2004 voted to reelect President Barack Obama in 2012, 52 percent to 46 percent.